LEARNING, not lorries, teaching, not tipping - these are the demands of residents who want plans for a waste site stopped and a school built there instead.

A petition hearing tonight (Wednesday) at Hillingdon Civic Centre demands that Tavistock Road, in Yiewsley, is dropped from the West London Waste Plan so that the 20-acre site can be used for education purposes.

The alternative, say the more than 2,300 signatories, could be Hillingdon Council pushing ahead with plans to solve the borough's school places crisis by building on Green Belt land.

Jan Sweeting, of Frays Avenue, West Drayton, used to work for the council, planning school places. She said the site is ideal for a new school, primary or secondary.

"All these extra primary schoolchildren will eventually need a secondary school and we will have the same problem," she said.

"You might be able to expand a little bit here and there, but schools should not have four forms of entry; it's far too much.

"A play area could be sited near the railway side to minimise noise disruption in classrooms. Why put a tip there?

"The traffic will not be nearly as much as if the site was used as a waste site. It will be cars and not 40-tonne trucks going in and out."

And the campaigners have a powerful ally. Transport for London (TfL) also opposes plans to use Tavistock Road as a waste transfer site.

In an email to Mrs Sweeting, TfL said: "The junction as it stands is very congested, and because of this we experience delays to all our services serving West Drayton.

"We would have grave concerns if a development of this size were to go ahead without a rethink of the whole junction."